Johnny Cash, The Essential
Johnny CashTHE ESSENTIAL
JOHNNY CASH.
The Essential Johnny Cash uses two full CDs to follow Cash through decades of recordings, moving from his early Sun material through major Columbia-era songs and later career landmarks.
Album artwork shown for commentary and historical reference. Image source: Cover Art Archive / MusicBrainz.
SEVEN THINGS
WORTH KNOWING.
Recording stories, personnel, physical details and numbers worth keeping with the record.
The Essential Johnny Cash was released on February 12, 2002.
The standard edition is a two-CD set with 18 tracks on each disc, for 36 tracks total.
The collection includes early recordings such as "Hey Porter," "Cry, Cry, Cry" and "I Walk the Line."
It also includes major story songs such as "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" and "The Ballad of Ira Hayes."
June Carter Cash appears in the career story represented by recordings such as "Jackson."
The sequence reaches into Cash's later career rather than stopping with his 1950s and 1960s recordings.
The album was issued through Columbia and Legacy as part of the broader Essential series.
WHY THIS
ALBUM MATTERS.
The two-disc format allows the compilation to show how many different Johnny Cash careers fit inside one name, from Sun rockabilly through country storytelling, duets and late-period reinvention.
THE
NUMBERS.
TRACKS
The standard collection contains thirty-six songs.
CDS
Each disc contains eighteen tracks.
RELEASE
The compilation arrived on February 12, 2002.
THE
PHYSICAL OBJECT.
The two-disc package gives the set enough space to function as a chronological career survey rather than a short greatest-hits sampler.
RESEARCH SOURCES
Facts are checked against official artist archives, release databases, recording credits and established archival sources before publication.
KEEP
DIGGING.
More recording stories, strange credits, cover art, chart numbers and details hiding inside the records.